2005-06-28

Religious Reckoning

At the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the most prominent religious figure in the world, Pope John Paul, came out in favour of the state-slavery of 27 million Iraqis - in favour of indefinite continuation of what was possibly the worst holocaust of the 20th century, which even included institutionalized rape, something that not even the Nazis or the Communists stooped to. What exactly was the religion of the Pope that made him not have empathy for the rape victims of Iraq? Was he a sociopath? Or was there something missing from his religion? The religious leaders in Australia were also in favour of institutionalized rape. And in a bizarre new development, the Anglicans have decided to persecute Jews in the hope of getting praise instead of vitriol from the Islamofascists. Let's analyze some of the major religions to discover "what went wrong".

I won't bother with boring religions like Buddhism, where priests seem to sit around doing nothing instead of trying to indoctrinate children before it's too late and they become rational. And the practitioners themselves seem to burn incense, nod their head, and ask God to give them money. It's men of violence who shape the world, and for that we need to look at Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Let's start with Judaism. They have a barbaric book called the Torah, which competes with Mein Kampf for cruelty of man on man. However, after thousands of years of persecution for calling themselves "God's chosen ones" and putting everyone else in an out-group bound for Hell, they appear to have toned it down a bit. But their barbaric book, which includes horrible torture such as being stoned to death, remains as-is. They don't appear to want to change it to something more suitable for the 21st century. In fact, all the Jews need to do is teach their children about CURRENT Israeli law, and how it protects human rights and doesn't discriminate against citizens on the basis of race/religion/sex. The solution is obvious. Ditch the Torah, start teaching the tolerance of Israel's liberal democracy (which is rational and humanist and always subject to change with new understandings). Why do they persist with keeping their Torah, unwilling to delete the violent passages, or at least add some sort of disclaimer to the front of their grisly book? I don't know. Perhaps they're sociopaths.

Next we have Christianity. And would you know it? Same deal. In Matthew 5 verses 17-20 (New Testament), Jesus clearly instructs people to follow the Old Testament. Which is presumably why Christians continue to publish the Old Testament, instead of deleting it and replacing it with "Wow, I hope that never happens again". Or they could replace it with "God says that slavery is wrong, sexism is wrong, racism is wrong and that we should use our brains to figure out what is right and wrong instead of relying on the alleged wisdom of some ignorant goat-herders who died centuries ago". But they don't. Instead they continue printing this vile, cruel book, which even teaches people to stone their own children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). And once again, the Christians have all the European, American and Australian liberal democracies from which they can learn about tolerance and generosity from. The answers (rationalism and humanism) are staring them in the face. In fact, despite his errors of omission and his authorizing of the cruelty in the Old Testament, Jesus seems to have been a humanist, basically following Aristotle's Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have others do unto you). So why do Christians refuse to update their nasty book? I don't know. Maybe they're sociopaths.

Next we have Islam. This took barbarity to a new height. E.g. how would you like to be a woman captured in a war that Mohammed started, turned into a slave, raped, and then be told by your rapist "what are you complaining about woman, God says this is my right, go and read 33:50 if you don't believe me"? If that isn't adding insult to injury, what is?! God not only authorizes stoning your own children, he authorizes rape as well. That's what led Al Sadr in Iraq to announce that any female British soldiers that were caught would become sex slaves, and it is what authorizes the Iranian regime to rape girls who are protesting for their human rights. Now before I question why the Muslims don't update their holy book with something a bit more humane, let's see something interesting.

There has been attempts by Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders to come together to resolve their differences so that everyone can live together in peace and harmony. Sound good? Sure. But how do you trust someone who continues to indoctrinate children with a respective book of hate, and who refuses to adopt your particular book of hate because he thinks he'll go to Hell if he does? All these religions teach of a vicious vindictive God, and if you are unlucky enough to choose the WRONG RELIGION (or even wrong sect!), it's ETERNAL DAMNATION for you. How do you trust people? You can't. It's not possible. It's a failure. There's no meeting of the minds, no compromise, no new "combined" book with the good bits of each. There's just suspicion. And status quo. I do concede that modern Christianity is quite progressive (ie although the Pope supports holocausts, he didn't actual create any new ones). But not to the point where anyone would dare update their book and specify under what circumstances (if any) that Muslims, Hindus and atheists would be allowed into heaven. So these people remain in an out-group, with no "legal" protection of their human rights. How can you possibly trust someone who is so non-humanist that they're unwilling to give you religious guarantees, in writing, ie in their holy book, that you're not going to be sent to Hell? Would you trust someone who thinks you're one step away from Hell-fire? Not in a million years!

Ok, so now back to the question of why the Muslims won't update their book. Guess what? They have! That's what Sufism is. Some Muslims could see how inhumane the book was and did something about it. This is why the Indonesians and ex-Soviet Muslims aren't fanatics. Unfortunately in the Middle East, Sufism was defeated by war, and the Sunnis took over. And there was one other major step in Islam. The Mu'tazilah realised that the Koran was written by Mohammed, not revealed from God. They pledged loyalty to their brain above all else. And with this important step, they were able to rewrite anything they wanted. Nothing was sacrosanct. Everything was open to scrutiny. Unfortunately, the Mu'tazilah were also defeated by war.

And that brings us to the latest precipice. The Muslims don't appear to realise it, but practicing Christianity has almost been wiped out in the west. There are more practicing Muslims in Britain than there are practicing Christians. Secular/rational humanism, as represented by our liberal democracies, has taken over. But the Muslims don't realise that religious wars finished centuries ago, and are essentially banging their head against a brick wall (the science-based western military), trying to get their prophet recognized by all. They don't understand the strength of the western military. They think that because the USSR supposedly lost in Afghanistan, and the US is supposedly weaker-willed than the USSR, that the US is a pushover. The US is essentially paused at the moment, contemplating whether to wipe Islam from the face of the earth or not. Iraq was an opportunity to watch the behaviour of Muslims in a free environment. To see what they would do. And what was found was that Iraq was a very diverse nation, and with a lot of people behaving irrationally (in the west we assume that everyone else is as rational as us, an incorrect assumption). What we also found was that there were Muslims just like us! Via the Iraqi blogs. The very best of the Iraqis, the one who is IDENTICAL to secular humanists in the west, is Ali. E.g. he applauded the assassination of Yassin, a Palestinian terrorist. His religion? Mu'tazilah.

We now have the answers we need. If you had a gun, and a poor IGNORANT lion saw you and wanted to eat you for lunch, would you shoot him and prove how tough you are, or would you have empathy for it, and climb a tree to avoid a clash? This is the choice we are faced with now. It is the greatest test Christians will ever face. Do they listen to Jesus, more-or-less a humanist, or do they just continue to watch lions being chewed up and spat out by an invincible US military? What would Jesus do? Climb the tree! Convert to Mu'tazilah. Let the poor, abused, confused Muslims "win". Bush should convert to Mu'tazilah and declare the US to be an Islamic State under Mu'tazilah - which it already is in all but name. This will defuse the problem, and we will have an opportunity, over the coming decades, to teach Muslims that organized religion has been replaced by secular humanism via liberal democracies. And that religion is a personal matter, that no-one really cares about, or should care about. And that if you leave Islam to become a Buddhist, the response should not be "you deserve to die" but "good for you!". September 11 was God's test of Christians. And to a man they have failed it. Not one of them followed what Jesus would have done. I'm the only convert. And I am a convert from atheism.

So Christians, go back to your book of hate. Go back to your pretensions of being better than Muslims. And the same goes for Jews. You people should know better. The Muslims I can forgive. They don't know any better, having lived under brutal dictatorships with no freedom of speech (don't forget, all given Papal blessing). But there's no such excuse for those raised in an environment of (secular) humanism. I have nothing but contempt for anyone still calling themselves Christian or Jew, watching fellow human beings, beautiful but confused monkeys, getting slaughtered on TV.